Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion
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Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion section of the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Mass. As such, our focus starts there and spreads to include Massachusetts, the nation and the world. Since successful blogs create communities of readers and writers, we hope the \x34& Co.\x34 will also come to include you.

I continue to be struck by the lasting damage Republicans have done to their party this election cycle, and most of it can’t be blamed on Mitt Romney.

Consider the effort to suppress minority voting, promoted by ALEC and the GOP/Tea Party establishment and enthusiastically carried out by Republican governors and state legislatures. The we-must-stop-voter-fraud cover story worked for some, but the partisan advantage sought by Republicans was clear even before the head of the Pennsylvania GOP promised his state’s voter ID law would deliver Pennsylvania to Romney by discouraging minority (mostly Hispanic) voters from coming to the polls.

In Florida, the vote suppression effort came in the form of reduced hours for early voting. Again, voter fraud was the cover story, but an ex-GOP state party chairman told the Palm Beach Post that “The Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants, they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates.” So the state that is the symbol of election ineptness, cut the number of early voting days in half — even though there were long lines even for those wanting to vote early.

In state after state such stories played out, always with a clear undertone that said Republicans don’t want minorities to vote, because they are likely to vote for Democrats.

What were they thinking? What would you do if you heard Republicans in your state capital were making a concerted effort to keep people like you from voting? For starters, you’d make sure you voted, even if it meant showing up with multiple IDs, even if it meant — as it turned out to mean in Florida — waiting in line for hours on end, long after the polls closed, long after the presidential race had been declared won.

And chance are, you wouldn’t forget which political party tried to keep you from voting. Even if they put a sombrero on the elephant, even if they sprinkled the ballot with Hispanic names and brown faces, you’d remember that back in 2012, Republicans had it in for people like you.

Long after Mitt Romney is but a memory, the GOP will still carry the self-inflicted wounds of this year’s campaign.